Mayo Clinic is against Health Bill. (Biggest loser is the patient)

[Soul Crusher]

Mayo Clinic Blog Blasts Obamacare
Posted by Paul McDougall on July 21, 2009 10:17 AM

No less a revered, tech-savvy institution than the Mayo Clinic has come out swinging against President Obama's national healthcare agenda. "The real losers will be the citizens of the United States," warns the clinic's official blog. The problem: The plan fails to employ data to gauge whether publicly-funded providers are earning their money or operating Dickensian patient mills.

The Mayo Clinic lauds the idea of healthcare insurance for all, but it believes that the current plan before Congress would simply extend Medicare's vast inefficiencies and failures to the wider public. "In general, the proposals under discussion are not patient focused or results oriented," states the Mayo Clinic, in a post on its Health Policy Blog that appeared last week.

A major shortcoming with Medicare and Medicaid is that, controlling for regional variations, they pay the same regardless of the level of care. That is, a hospital whose patients are likely to die within 30 days of a bypass gets equal reimbursement for the procedure as a hospital whose cardiac patients can expect to play tennis well into the next decade.

Obama's healthcare reform would continue to reward such medical mediocrity, but on a universal scale. The plan does envision so-called value-based payments, but not until 2012 or 2013. And the rewards for higher performance would be modest at best. "Lawmakers have failed to use a fundamental lever—a change in Medicare payment policy—to help drive necessary improvements in American healthcare," states the Mayo Clinic.

The real shame here is that the data sets needed to create a true, results-based payment system (i.e., the longer your patients live, the more money you'll make), are available right now. The Mayo Clinic has for the past several years worked closely with IBM to create one of the world's richest medical databases.

That information could be used to compare patient outcomes at specific institutions against national and regional averages to gauge performance and create payment tables. The better the performance, the higher the payment. "Outcomes data are already available," the Mayo Clinic notes in a separate position paper on the issue.

There's lots of other things wrong with Obamacare. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says it's a trillion dollar budget buster.

But perhaps the most fundamental shortfall with Obama's plan is it’s apparent willful ignorance of existing healthcare data that could be mined with business intelligence tools to add a dose of free-market reality. Otherwise, the program threatens to make a trip to the doctor about as pleasant (and efficient) as getting a new driver's license from your local DMV.

That's just sick.

InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on leading-edge government IT -- and how the technology involved may end up inside your business. Download the report here (registration required).

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Going to the DMV stinks!

[shootfighter1]

I saw this.  Mayo clinic is one of the top three teaching hospitals in the country IMO.

The AMA board came out in favor of "meaningful medical reform"...sounds like they are in favor of a 1 payor system, but this is not representitive of all docs around the country.  The AMA is a very political organization and many docs have left in the past few yrs.  Even within the AMA there is significant disagreement.

[Soul Crusher]

I saw this.  Mayo clinic is one of the top three teaching hospitals in the country IMO.

The AMA board came out in favor of "meaning medical reform"...sounds like they are in favor of a 1 payor system, but this is not representitive of all docs around the country.  The AMA is a very political organization and many docs have left in the past few yrs.  Even within the AMA there is significant disagreement.

Perils of Obamacare: The Three Big Lies
By Michael Tanner

In making his case for a government takeover of the US health-care system, President Obama is going far beyond the usual Washington truth-stretching. Take a look at just a few of the most common claims:

"If you like your current health-care plan, you can keep it." Even White House spokesmen have said that Obama's oft-repeated pledge that you can keep your current insurance isn't meant to be taken literally. The reality is that millions of Americans - perhaps most Americans - will be forced to change insurance plans.

First, the president supports an individual mandate - a requirement that every American buy health insurance. And not just any insurance but insurance that includes all the benefits government thinks you should have. That insurance could be more expensive or include benefits that people don't want or are morally opposed to, such as abortion services.

And that doesn't just affect those without insurance today. The bills now before Congress say that while you won't be immediately forced to switch from your current insurance to a government-specified plan, you'll have to switch to satisfy the government's requirements if you lose your current insurance or want to change plans.

Plus, the president supports the creation of a government insurance program that would compete with private insurance. But because this ultimately would be subsidized by American taxpayers, the government plan could keep its premiums artificially low or offer extra benefit.

In the end, millions of Americans would be forced out of the insurance they have today and into the government plan. Businesses, in particular, would have every incentive to dump their workers into the public plan. The actuarial firm the Lewin Group estimates that as many as 118.5 million people, roughly two-thirds of those with insurance today, would be shifted from private to public coverage.

"You will pay less." The Congressional Budget Office has made it clear that the reform plans now being debated will increase overall health-care costs, yet President Obama on Friday repeatedly said that his reform would reduce costs and save Americans money.

But no matter how many times he says it, the truth is you will pay more - much more - both in higher taxes and in higher premiums.

The final health-care bill is expected to cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. That means much higher taxes, and not just for the wealthy.

If one totals up all the new taxes in the House Democratic health-reform bill - the income surtax, the penalties on businesses and individuals that fail to buy into the government health plan, as well as other fees and taxes - the cost to US taxpayers will top $800 billion. New York City will face marginal tax rates as high as 57 percent.

At a time of rising unemployment and economic stagnation, that is like throwing an anchor to a drowning man.

In addition, the new insurance regulations expected to be part of the final bill are likely to drive up insurance premiums. And, if the new government-run plan under-reimburses doctors and hospitals - as Medicare and Medicaid do - providers would be forced to recoup that lost income by shifting their costs to private insurance, driving up premiums. A study by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance estimates that the president's proposals could increase premiums by 75 to 95 percent.

"Quality will improve." Anyone who thinks a government takeover of the health-care system will improve quality of care has only to look at the health-care programs the government already runs: The Veterans Administration is overwhelmed with problems, Medicaid is notorious for providing poor quality at a high cost - and Medicare has huge gaps in coverage.

Worse, however, on Friday, Obama endorsed the creation of a government board with the power to dictate how your doctor practices medicine and all but endorsed the rationing prevalent in nationalized health-care systems around the world.

In short, when it comes to claims about the wondrous new world of government-run health care, a bit of skepticism might be in order.

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.

This article first appeared in the New York Post.

 

[headhuntersix]

Ignored.

[Soul Crusher]

Ignored.

SHOOT - WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??

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Budget chief: Docs fees not paid for in Obama bill 
 
Jul 21 04:14 PM US/Eastern
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent Comments (15)      Share on Facebook         
 
 
WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior administration official says billions of dollars to raise fees for doctors treating Medicare patients are not covered by President Barack Obama's pledge to pay for health care legislation.

Budget Director Peter Orszag said Tuesday that's because the administration always assumed the money would be spent to prevent a cut of more than 20 percent in doctor fees.

The Congressional Budget Office said last Friday the higher payments cost $245 billion over 10 years. It said including the money in the overall bill would result in deficits totaling $239 billion.

On Friday, a few hours earlier, the president declared: "I've said that health-insurance reform cannot add to our deficit over the next decade. And I mean it."
 
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SHOOT CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT THIS MEANS?

[GigantorX]

..................*Crickets Chirping*

[George Whorewell]

BUSH LIED PEOPLE DIED!

WHY IS THIS A STORY?!?! DICK CHENEY IS A WAR CRIMINAL!

[Soul Crusher]

..................*Crickets Chirping*

[shootfighter1]

I'm not sure, just from those statements.  I know nearly every year congress passes supplemental funding to avoid a large decrease in medicare reimbursements because the medicare fee schedule is f'ed up.  Many in the medical community were asking for a more accurate permanent fee schedule so this supplemental funding didn't have to come up every year with threatened cuts.  I assume that is alluding in some way to the supplemental usually passed last minute to avoid medicare reimbursement cuts.

[Soul Crusher]

I'm not sure, just from those statements.  I know nearly every year congress passes supplemental funding to avoid a large decrease in medicare reimbursements because the medicare fee schedule is f'ed up.  Many in the medical community were asking for a more accurate permanent fee schedule so this supplemental funding didn't have to come up every year with threatened cuts.  I assume that is alluding in some way to the supplemental usually passed last minute to avoid medicare reimbursement cuts.

I read that this statement was the mDocs fees are going to get slashed amazingly under this. 

Shoot - check out my thread about the letter I sent to the reps.  You should do the same and tell you doc friends to do the same.

This health care fisaco literally will destroy your career.